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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27389425">Of Gods and Flames</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromi/pseuds/Chromi'>Chromi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Piece</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ace is Fine, Adventure, Attempt at Humor, Canon Universe, Drama, Exploration, Gen, Hybrids, Investigations, Kidnapping, NaNoWriMo 2020, Non-Human Humanoid Society, Not What It Looks Like, Plot Twists</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:40:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,723</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27389425</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromi/pseuds/Chromi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><br/>When the second division return to the Moby Dick from a mission without their commander in tow, chaos ensues. </p><p>What happened on the uninhabited island of Sol, and how is Marco supposed to fix this mess?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco &amp; Portgas D. Ace, Portgas D. Ace &amp; Whitebeard Pirates</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>86</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>One of my projects for NaNoWriMo! I wasn't going to submit this until the whole thing was done, but hey, why not? It'll be completed this month, along with another project or two (or three, or four...). Four days into NaNo and I'm on track - I hope I'll keep it up!</p><p>This is not intended as a shipping fic between Marco and Ace. The chapter count isn't final - it might end up being 4, or 6 - but 5 is what I'm aiming for at the moment.</p><p>Big thank you to Ariel_Lazarus for betaing for me ♡ enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Pandemonium reigned, and for the first time in far too many weeks, there was almost certainly good reason for it to.</p><p>Bodies wove around each other on deck, men shouting questions to friends, orders to subordinates, each and every person present baring that same unsettled, nervous look on their face. Even Whitebeard, sitting in his throne of a chair and gripping his bisento more for reassuring comfort than any form of plan to wield it, was ashen-faced and uneasy – a sight in itself that was distressing.</p><p>Amid the panic stood Marco, barking for his men to shut up and settle down, to let the returning members of the second division have some space and some goddamn <em>peace</em>. They needed it; they looked like they were about to vomit, each and every one of the men who had returned from their mission intact (alive, blessedly alive and present).</p><p>When at last a lull in the noise presented just enough chance for Marco to be heard over the riot of shrill voices, Whitebeard raised one massive hand to call for total, complete silence. With a long sigh that rippled his vast moustache, he peered down at the twenty trembling members of the second division. On their knees, most of them were, or else collapsed in a heap on their asses. None remained standing after climbing aboard from their surveillance ships, fresh back from a mission; none had the strength to do so, Marco assumed, each of them moved to helplessness and nervous tremors.</p><p>Their behavior only served to make Marco – and the rest of the crew – worry deeply. Whatever had happened, they were about to unveil the truth one way or another.</p><p>Expeditions didn't tend to return home without their commander among them and simply carry on about their day as normal, after all.</p><p>“Sons,” Whitebeard boomed, though he spoke carefully with a gentle touch to his tone, “I ask that you elaborate for us a little. I'm struggling to understand exactly where this venture went wrong; I am failing to discern why you have not returned home with Ace in tow. Please,” he raised a hand as five of the men began talking at once, hysterical voices overlapping into unintelligible babble, “one at a time. Saber, if you would enlighten us.”</p><p>For Ace was missing; absent; gone. Heading the mission and near-on bouncing with enthusiasm to do so, Ace had taken a handful of his division out two days ago on what should have been at least a week-long mission. The situation unfurling did not spell promise, and each crewmember present itched with the same anxiety as Whitebeard to understand not only their early return, but also the loss of their brother.</p><p>At once, Saber, former member of the Spade pirates and probably the man who knew Ace best in their little party as a result, stood up, whipping off his hat so reminiscent of Ace's own. He trembled where he stood – not because he was pinned under the scrutiny of so many pairs of eyes, but because he didn't know how to sum up the explanation that whirled trapped behind his eyes. As Marco watched from beside Whitebeard (as ever, forever), Saber opened and closed his mouth several times before sighing, twirling his hat in his hands.</p><p>“Dunno where to begin,” he mumbled, shaking his head, “we didn't know what to do at first.”</p><p>A murmur of agreement rippled through the seated second division members, each of them gazing imploringly at their captain as if under the illusion he could fix whatever mess had occurred. Whitebeard was good, but not <em>that </em>good; he couldn't fathom what had gone wrong in a mission if no one spoke up.</p><p>“Start at the beginning,” Whitebeard said, settling back into his seat and leaning his bisento against the side of his throne, “from the moment you weighed anchor. Start there, son.”</p><p>Saber shuffled nervously, dark eyes flicking from Whitebeard to Marco to Thatch, who had wandered over to sit on the steps at Whitebeard's feet. Like this – with the twenty men seated in the pit in the center of the Moby Dick's deck, ringed by Whitebeard and his most trusted commanders seated high above them and waiting, expectant – it almost felt as if these men were criminals being tried for the crime of losing their commander.</p><p>Marco sure hoped they didn't feel that that was what was happening here.</p><p>“Well,” Saber began, fiddling with the rim of his white hat, “we arrived at the island yesterday morning, as planned. It looked like how the initial scouting party had described – tropical, loads of palm trees lining the beach, white sand, you name it... Ace said it reminded him of that island in East Blue, Sixis – y'know, the one he and Deuce got stranded on. That’s why he was so keen on going; he wanted to compare them, see. Not bein’ awkward here, but he wasn’t interested in plotting out a new safe place to establish a trade route via – he never worries about any of that. He just wanted a taste of nostalgia.”</p><p>Whitebeard nodded, but Thatch shuffled irritably on Marco's other side, obviously not giving a damn about the state of the island. Marco elbowed him, shooting him a warning look – it would be better for Saber to get this out at his own pace, and nothing less.</p><p>“Beautiful, it was,” Saber continued, not seeming to notice Thatch's huff, “real beautiful. We messed around for a bit, as you do when on an uninhabited island, I guess. Couple of the guys started play-fighting, couple others got all excited and started writing down what we were seeing, thinking we’d hit the jackpot. We could definitely use this place as a stashing island and build stores and what have you, like what we’d gone looking for. The usual. Someone climbed up a palm tree and cut down a bunch of bananas, started handing them round everyone... Ace started telling us this story about how his brother likes bananas, and we were all like <em>yes Ace, we know</em>... Normal stuff. Like, I can't stress to you how <em>normal </em>this all was, how chilled we all were. You'd have thought we'd docked on a resort island, the way everything was so perfect and the guys were all happy.</p><p>“So, we went about our usual tasks. Jonno and I wrote out lists of plants and trees we could see; Hendry took readings on the length of the beach, the type of sand or rocks or whatever it is he does; Ace divided up the guys and gave them all jobs to do, things to look for, you name it. We knew what we were doing – run of the mill stuff.”</p><p>Whitebeard hummed, nodding slightly. “Of course,” he said when Saber paused for breath, the hat in his hands spinning faster in his agitation, “the second division are particularly good at expeditions into unknown territories. An uninhabited island with no evidence of wildlife should have posed no problem for any of you.”</p><p>So then <em>what? </em>Marco was finding it harder to resist joining Thatch in struggling to keep quiet. This portion of the second division, led by Ace, had been tasked with the job of scouting out and mapping a new island that the fleet had picked up on their radars a week ago.</p><p>The forward scout – Marco, in fact, flying solo and free – had circled the island several times, seeing nothing of note other than dense foliage ringing the beaches, and lighter, sparser trees the further inland one went. Canopies sprawled out below him, the trees massive and covering much of the ground, yet between them there was only forest floor, as far as Marco's keen eyes had picked out. There had been no signs of life; no signs of human or near-human activity to speak of. Even on landing on the beach (which was against protocol for a solo explorer – for who knew what kinds of traps could lie in wait of invaders with no means of getting a message back to home?) Marco had detected nothing living. No tracks; no disturbance to the foliage that almost seemed to act like a barricade of sorts between the beach and beyond.</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>“Exactly,” Saber said, nodding at Whitebeard, catching Marco's eye briefly before dropping his gaze back down to his boots. “Marco would have spotted signs of unfriendly locals. He's always seeing things that we don't notice, so it's not like any of us were worried. Not that we weren't cautious,” he hastily added, assuaging the frown that pulled deep at Whitebeard's brows, “we assumed there would be a surprise or two lurking somewhere around the island – there always is, isn't there? Nowhere's ever <em>actually </em>deserted; even on Sixis, Ace said there were seagulls roosting and laying eggs at the top of the trees. There's always some form of life hanging around.”</p><p>“We thought we'd find crabs on the beach, maybe,” Jonno, a young man in the second division piped up from behind Saber, looking imploringly at Whitebeard, “or some kinds of small breeds of something or another – like mice or birds – once we got into exploring properly. But there was nothin'. Just bugs – so many bugs.”</p><p>“Bees, spiders, mosquitos, and all sorts,” Saber reeled off, counting on his fingers, “but no butterflies. Ace commented on the lack of butterflies.”</p><p>“Weird thing for the kid to be noticing,” Thatch grunted. Saber shrugged.</p><p>“So off we went,” he continued, though his expression of distress was noticeably increasing, sweat beginning to bead along his hazel hairline. “One team headed east along the beach; another west. I went with Ace, Jonno, Hendry, and a couple others straight into the island. It was kinda hard to get through all the bushes and growth at first, but like Marco said before, that soon cleared. It was like the island was blocking access to itself from the beach, almost, and Ace said we had to respect the island's wishes or something. 'What's that supposed to mean?' one of the guys said, 'you tellin' us not to go see what's in there in case it makes the island sad?' And Ace didn't exactly say <em>no</em>, but he didn't seem all that happy about smashing up plants and vines and shit, either. He doesn't usually care.”</p><p>Saber heaved a great, shuddering sigh – one that filled him all the way down to the bottom of his lungs, holding it for a moment before letting it whistle out between his lips. This was the point where the story changed – the crew could all feel it, bristling with anticipation as the energy around them shifted, coming alive with impatience and nerves. Something had happened – something significant – and Saber was evidently suddenly not entirely happy about being the one to tell their story.</p><p>“He said it didn't look natural, and I trusted him on that,” Saber said in a rush, like doing so would make it less embarrassing to say. “Ace knows things about the wilderness that none of us can grasp; it's like he can communicate with it, almost. He said the way the vegetation circled the beach – the way it was woven together, like, with vines all snaking through the bushes and shrubs in the same up and down, round and round pattern – wasn't right. Wasn't <em>wild </em>enough. It was engineered to act as a barrier, but there was no one around to do that.”</p><p>“Maybe people used to live on that island, but left in search of running water and good beer?” Thatch joked. “Hey, don't look at me like that,” he snapped at Marco mid-eyeroll, “it's a valid guess! <em>You </em>should know; you left home to look for something better, didn't you?”</p><p>“Or maybe there was an outbreak of disease?” Vista suggested, leaning in between the two, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe everyone died long ago?”</p><p>Saber shook his head, and Whitebeard raised his hand for silence, quelling the swell of theorizing that had begun to bubble up among the crowd. “No bodies,” Saber stated baldly, a grim, almost horrified look on his face, “no graves. No one had died. No one had lived there, as far as we could tell. No houses. No paths. No signs. Just trees – miles of trees as far as we could see.</p><p>“And then—”</p><p>He cut himself off, breath drawing in tight as his lower lip trembled again without warning.</p><p>Though he didn't know him all that well, Marco at least knew Saber to be a man of truth. A man who was so honest he probably couldn't lie even if his life truly did depend on it. Everything he thought, he displayed in his expression, whether that helped him or not (frequently resulting in his total nudity during strip poker, for example). While not exactly theatrical as such or overly emotional, he was certainly the epitome of candor and sincerity, one who could easily be relied on to wear his heart on his sleeve, so to speak.</p><p>So when the tears welled up – when Saber sniffed, shuddered a sigh, and apologized for needing a moment before continuing, Marco felt his first real thrill of dread thrum through him.</p><p>“Saber,” he said briskly, meeting his overly bright eyes, “what happened next?”</p><p>He deliberated for a moment too long for his audience's straining ears, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Behind him, several members of the returning expedition team shared worried glances, looking very much like they had no desire whatsoever to listen to what their friend was about to recall.</p><p>“Night began to fall,” Saber sighed, voice dropping to a murmur that the crew had to strain to hear, “and, as we hadn't found anything of any interest, we set up camp after deciding to have another look around the next day. Again, the usual – we fought over who would pitch the tents, and Ace helped me gather firewood while telling the men to stop bitching and get on with it. When we were in the trees, we both got that feeling of being watched – you know the one; where the hair on the back of your neck stands on end, and you can't shake the sensation that there's something there, in the dark, hidden barely feet from you. We both felt it. We both laughed it off after I shone a torch between the trees, finding nothing.</p><p>“Then Ace lit the bonfire.” Saber ran a shaking hand through his hair, avoiding the stares driving nails into his skin. “As in, <em>Ace </em>lit a <em>bonfire</em> while out with his division.”</p><p>Meaning Ace had shown off.</p><p>Meaning Ace, in his typical fashion that all were acutely accustomed to, had lit himself up like a human torch and made a spectacle of lighting their heaped pile of wood on fire. A show for his crewmates, more than anything, the display also serving as an unwitting reminder to all of what breath-taking power he commanded. Beautiful, always, were Ace’s flames, and something that each member of the crew enjoyed watching.</p><p>Saber's chest heaved, eyes darting between his boots, sweat pouring from his temples.</p><p>“We were stupid,” he breathed, knuckles white as his hat in his hands, “Pops, we had been looking for <em>people, </em>for things that we know <em>people </em>to do and create and live by. We didn't find paths on the ground because there weren't any to find; we didn't come across any houses of mud or brick or wood because no, they really never <em>have </em>existed on that island.”</p><p>Jonno behind him fisted his hair, shoulders shaking, eyes glazed with tears. Glancing sidelong at Whitebeard, Marco took his hands out of his pockets, his nails cutting deep into his palms.</p><p>“We <em>had</em> been being watched,” he whispered to his boots, “and Ace was <em>right </em>about the barriers. They were a warning.”</p><p>“A warning from who?” Whitebeard asked calmly, yet tension fizzled through his carefully constructed mask.</p><p>Saber looked up again, eyes sparkling, mouth turned down like it was all he could do to not let go and wail.</p><p>“There was no way out,” he moaned in a hiss, “nowhere to run. No one thought to look at the <em>trees</em>, Pops, we were too concerned with the <em>ground </em>like <em>fools</em>. We couldn't save him.”</p><p>“Who?” Marco shot at him, but they knew. The look on Saber's face – Ace's absence – told them all.</p><p>“You never think to check the skies in the dark.” A nervous laugh issued from him, almost manic in nature. “This was their territory, and Ace had just lit the beacon announcing our invasion.”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Long chapter. Sorry! I got carried away.</p><p>Ace and Deuce are referred to as partners in this, as in Novel A. This is written in a platonic way, but if you want to read it as romantic, be my guest. Either way, it isn't important to the plot :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nothing of any sensibility came out of Saber's mouth following this enigmatic revelation, his ability to further recall the night's events having been lost to hitched sobs and shaking hands. The other men of the second division also seemed incapable of responding to further questioning for the moment, leaving the rest of the crew burning with theories and worries that couldn't be righted or answered. All that they were able to divulge was that they had ran in blind terror, crashing back through the undergrowth to their moored boat without a second look back.</p><p><em>Monsters</em>, one of the younger members had wept. <em>Monsters like you wouldn't believe</em>.</p><p>Regardless, Marco struggled to sympathize with them. Breaking the situation down to its most fundamental, to the bare bones of the problem, the fact remained that the men had abandoned their commander and left him to die, for all they knew. There was nothing to be gained from dressing it up as anything other than what it was, the reality of that terrifying night just a specter of horror - and one which Ace had been forsaken to experience alone.</p><p>Normally, abandonment of your commander or captain without excellent cause would result in exile from the crew, and there was no conceivable way these men hadn't known that when they had chosen to return, commanderless, to the Moby. But for all twenty of the men to collapse into tears at the tail-end of Saber's story, weeping Ace's name and becoming unfit for anything other than a stiff drink, there had to be scope for this to fall into the category of <em>an excellent cause.</em></p><p>Whatever these creatures were, they had taken Ace rather than killed him on the spot, if Marco was reading between the lines correctly. He had not been hurt as such, but rather snatched while burning bright as living flame.</p><p>“What I don't understand,” Marco said thoughtfully, pulling the mapped route to the island closer toward him, “is how the rest of the men got away uninjured.”</p><p>Whitebeard, Marco, Thatch, and Vista had reconvened in one of the map rooms below deck following dissipating the crowds of hysterical pirates. Prior to that, the returning expedition had been bundled off to the infirmaries by Marco while Whitebeard attempted to speak to Saber alone, away from an audience and safe in the captain's quarters. Expecting to discover a whole host of injuries that had been overlooked in the adrenalized frenzy of their return, what met Marco and Deuce (Marco's most reliable doctor and Ace's partner) had been a complete shock.</p><p>No injuries, save for scratches and shallow cuts caused by their frantic flight into the shrubs. No signs of attack of any kind – and, in reply to the doctors' shared bewilderment, each of the men had confirmed that they had 'got away' before their attackers could harm them.</p><p>Which made no sense whatsoever.</p><p>(Marco had neglected to inform Deuce that Ace had not returned with the rest of the party, and Deuce had not asked about him. If he had found it strange that Ace was not among the suspected wounded, then he showed no signs of thinking so. Perhaps, given that he had been in the infirmary on their return and had thus missed Saber's recount of their mission, Deuce simply assumed Ace to have avoided potential injury.</p><p>For the moment, Marco shamefully had not corrected him.)</p><p>“We still don't know <em>what </em>got Ace,” Thatch pointed out, pouring himself a drink from the cabinet at the back of the room, “although I guess we can deduce that they were flying creatures, whatever they were.”</p><p>Marco nodded, staring at the map as if it could somehow enlighten him as to what secrets it kept hidden away. <em>How </em>had he not seen anything during his flight? How had this island – one that they had been hoping to use as a storage place of sorts during trade and supply runs – refused to give anything away to him? It was a critical oversight however it had happened, and as a result Marco rather blamed himself for the mess that they were now in.</p><p>“Saber wouldn't tell me,” Whitebeard sighed, his eyes closed under his deep frown, “he kept gibbering on about Ace being snatched, but wouldn't describe them further.”</p><p>“He said no one thought to check the trees,” Marco recalled, hoping to extract further meaning from Saber’s final words, “and that they felt watched when they were among them.”</p><p>“Which doesn't add up,” Thatch interrupted, slinging his feet onto the table and crossing his ankles, reclining back in his chair. “Saber first says that they were being watched, and apparently had been for some time – for the duration of pitching the tents, if nothing else. But nothing attacked them until Ace burst into flames. He says that Ace announced their invasion by lighting up, but he didn't, did he? They had already made themselves known to these <em>monsters</em>, whoever they are, right?”</p><p>Right. That <em>didn't</em> add up and indeed contradicted itself, but it was a problem they could come back to later when parsing the finer details. There were more pressing matters to discuss first.</p><p>“What I'm most concerned about,” Marco murmured, casting a significant look at Whitebeard, “is how they were able to touch Ace while he was on fire.”</p><p>Ace's Mera-Mera powers made him intangible to anyone or anything that he didn't want touching him, as was the case with all Logia-type Devil Fruit users. Normally, physical attacks passed through Ace as cleanly as fingers swirling through water; a kidnapping situation where he was snatched from the ground by something flying should have, therefore, resulted in talons (or whatever these creatures possessed) sliding through flames and meeting nothing. It was disconcerting, and suggested the overwhelming likelihood that his attackers wielded Haki, something which no one present seemed at all keen to suggest.</p><p>“Aside from the bleedin' obvious,” Thatch grunted, rocking back on his chair, “your guess is as good as mine.”</p><p>“I am struggling to comprehend how these things were missed by yourself, Marco,” Vista said solemnly, twirling the end of his moustache between his fingers. The niceties were, as ever, bypassed between commanders, something that Marco was actually grateful for. “You always conduct a stringent aerial search when you scout ahead, and your keen eye has never failed to pick out the most innocuous of hints pointing to life on uncharted islands. You say you saw nothing, and I don't doubt that for a moment... so how did this happen?”</p><p>“There was nothing to speak of on the ground,” Marco recalled, turning the map slightly to better show Thatch and Vista the angle he had been scanning from, “nothing that could pertain to life of any kind. If you remember, I remarked on it in my report - how odd it was that there was <em>nothing</em>. Even birds would leave some kind of signs that they were there, even if you couldn't see them while they were roosting... so I really don't see how I could have missed something as significant as a colony of <em>something</em> that is capable enough to kidnap a burning man.”</p><p>Something about voicing this particular thought out loud made something else click into place in Marco's mind. Looking up at Thatch opposite him, he caught the twinkle of interest igniting in his eyes, confirming that he, too, had picked up on something critical in Marco's musings.</p><p>“You don't think...” Marco began quietly, staring at Thatch, who nodded gravely.</p><p>“You didn't see any signs of life because they didn't <em>want </em>you to,” Thatch finished for him, nodding slowly. “I might be wrong, but given what you've said tied in with the hysteria the boys showed, I don't believe we're dealing with the local wildlife here.”</p><p>“Local wildlife wouldn't be able to snatch a Logia user, either,” Vista sighed heavily, abandoning his attempt to twirl his moustache into a point and reclining in his chair, “which begs the question of why we are delaying our rescue mission and sitting around here, discussing something that cannot be fathomed without first witnessing it.”</p><p>Though Marco privately agreed with Vista's restlessness, there had been good reason to decide upon discussion over departure. Of course the natural response was to take up arms, spread his wings, and fly solo back to the island bearing talons of ice and steel, ready to rip out the throats of whoever dared harm his own, as he would for any of the crew... but there was merit in meeting like this first.</p><p>There was also the point that Whitebeard had raised - the one that had been what stayed Marco's transformation, convincing him to wait and listen rather than to blaze ahead.</p><p>“You are forgetting to examine the course of action taken by our unknown enemies,” Whitebeard rumbled, moustache twitching above the downturn of his mouth, again raising the same point he had made to Marco. “Knowing the unscrupulous of the world as we do so well, do you not find it intriguing - no, <em>concerning</em> - how these creatures <em>took </em>Ace rather than killed him? Do you not wonder what their motive was, if it was not to eradicate any threat they saw in the boy? And if they <em>were </em>threatened by him, why leave the others? Why simply settle on terrifying them, but not harming them?”</p><p>Vista and Thatch stared at Whitebeard, clearly trying to work out an explanation that could fit with all of the above. It was Thatch who, much like Marco had done, settled on the most morbid of explanations available.</p><p>“Fine,” he said, roughly massaging his temples, “okay, so say that they had no reason or intent to kill the lad then and there on the spot. Say they took him off to go do it someplace else - what of it? Look,” he sat upright again, planting his feet back on the floor, “this kind of behavior points to either using him as ransom - which would suggest that they know exactly who he is and who he belongs to - or they otherwise have need for some flaming idiot who wanders into their territory. If they <em>did </em>need him for something, wouldn't that suggest that they knew he was coming, and thus waited for him?”</p><p>“If so,” Vista said thoughtfully, “why wait until he's on fire to act?” He sighed long, low, and steady, seeming to deflate with it. “This is all becoming confusing. I'm not sure I understand what there is to gain from going round in circles, discussing something that is impossible to understand from our outside position.”</p><p>Marco hummed in thought to himself, gaining their attention. Just as Vista said, there was so much uncertainty surrounding this situation. Creatures who probably possessed Haki had taken Ace not when he had been at his most seemingly vulnerable, but when he was blazing flame. They had not harmed the others, whether intentionally or through poor visibility or other extraneous factors, Marco didn't know, their reported behavior irrational and confusing. There was also the men's unnaturally hyperbolic response; their desertion of their commander to consider.</p><p>On his first encounter with the Spade pirates back when they had been brought aboard the Moby, Marco's initial and enduring impression of the lot of them was that they would go to any lengths to protect Ace. With an almost concerning degree of devotion to him, each one of his crew had impressed Marco with their love for their captain... which only served to make Saber's abandonment all the more worryingly out of character. The rest of the second division on that mission could not be excused either, but Saber's behavior was leagues more concerning, given his continued loyalty to Ace.</p><p>“My conclusion is thus,” Marco announced, pressing his fingertips together to form a triangle under his chin. “Based on the shreds of information that we have, I do not believe Ace was killed on the night his men left the island. Though it doesn't make much sense to us at the moment, I'm sure that when we get back to the island, we'll be able to figure out the reasoning behind their attackers' choice to wait until Ace was on fire before making their move. No, it doesn't make sense - and yes, we are going back.”</p><p>He turned his focus onto Whitebeard, silently challenging the protest that lay in his eyes, that creased his brow further, knowing through learned practice what Marco was about to say.</p><p>“I will go ahead of a rescue party,” he said firmly, with such utter finality that Thatch shifted uncomfortably, the right to issue decisions to their Pops in situations like these not a luxury that they often indulged in. “I can fly far quicker than we can issue the needed number of boats, Pops. We don't know what they've done to Ace since leaving; I am hoping that he is alive and well, but for how long? Waiting around isn't a strategy I'm comfortable with playing.”</p><p>
  <em>Which is why I cannot believe we are in here, closeted away, while our brother is potentially breathing his last right this moment.</em>
</p><p>Whitebeard seemed to consider this, crossing his massive arms over his chest and closing his eyes as if in meditation. To Marco, there was nothing to consider; either they went now and learned what they needed on site, or they stayed here and endlessly chased their proverbial tails. All they had managed to garner from this discussion was countless uncertainties weaving around the sole surety: Going back for Ace.</p><p>“Why do I get the feeling,” Whitebeard murmured, his gaze almost lovingly tender when he opened his eyes and settled on Marco, “that this is a trap? That is an angle we have not yet considered. I feel as though sending you on ahead without backup would be tantamount to asking you to fly straight into the maw of the enemy.”</p><p>“That's just your dad instincts playing up,” Thatch joked, waving an airy hand in Whitebeard's direction, “as if anyone would ever use Ace as bait to get to Marco, of all people. They'd be out of their minds to try anything with him when there's no guarantee that Marco’d even show up alone.”</p><p>“Although if this is a foe that knows us well enough to know of Ace's powers,” Vista interjected, “then they will assumedly know of Marco's habit of sacrificing himself to save another... and, by extension, of his regeneration abilities.”</p><p>“The whole world knows about Ace and Marco's abilities,” Thatch said breezily, waving his hand again as if to dispel Vista's words, “you'd have to be living under a rock to have missed their <em>Wanted </em>posters.”</p><p>“Or on a deserted, unmapped island,” Marco said quietly. Thatch shut up immediately, swallowing any comeback he might have had prepared for such a response. “I'll be as careful as I can possibly be,” Marco added, nodding at Whitebeard, “and I will report in by snail phone every couple hours. If you don't hear from me for more than three hours, assume I'm in trouble. Or asleep,” he quirked a grin at Pops in a poor attempt at assuaging the worry that contorted his father's features.</p><p>“Very well,” Whitebeard conceded, almost certainly concluding that even if he forbade Marco from flying ahead of a rescue party, Marco would still go regardless, sure to find an exploitable loophole in Whitebeard's orders for the sake of saving a brother. “If you are set on going, then I suggest you do so before I change my mind and begin to worry too deeply. I only ask that you do not land in the trees… or indeed land anywhere but on the beach, if at all possible. I have no intention of allowing my son to fly solo if it will see him compromised and in danger. Collect your provisions, inform your division, and leave sorting the rescue party up to—”</p><p>“I'll do it,” Thatch raised his hand, “I'll grab a handful from the first through fourth divisions each. They'll take a good range of abilities along with them to suit whatever they find out there.”</p><p>Marco nodded, thankful for their support.</p><p>But before he assembled all the necessities he would need, first he had to make a quick pitstop to the infirmaries.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>However he had expected to feel while marching back along the corridor to the first of the medical bays, Marco had not anticipated being needled with guilt, of all things. In his mind's eye swam the image of Deuce's clinical detachment that always accompanied examining patients, the same manner he'd had about him earlier when assessing the second division. The further he watched the memory of his subordinate, the more warped the man became as imagination came into play also, morphing Deuce from indifferent neutrality to horrified, uncontrollable panic on learning what had become of Ace.</p><p>Marco gave himself a little shake, willing not to focus on the fear he was sure he was about to meet in Deuce's eyes - acute, soul-deep fear that he'd only ever seen once before, when first talking to him back in the days before the Spades had become the Whitebeards, back when Deuce had believed Ace to have been killed in cold blood rather than held elsewhere on the ship. Thatch had taken Ace, and Marco had assigned himself to Deuce, and in hindsight, splitting them up had been a monumental error that had soon been tearfully righted.</p><p>Nowadays, talking with Deuce was usually easy. Straightforward. Marco would ask for his medical opinion, or crack a joke, or otherwise offload a little more than he might have done to the other doctors. Each time, Deuce would listen attentively, offering solutions or replying with that dry sense of humor of his that always made Marco laugh.</p><p>While not exactly close friends per se, Marco certainly considered Deuce to be someone he liked and respected. That, coupled with the fact that Marco was almost just as fond of Ace, made this all the more difficult.</p><p>But he couldn't leave without informing Deuce of Ace's disappearance, the job not one that he wanted to delegate to another of the commanders or even one of Ace and Deuce's mutual friends. Truthfully, Marco should have told him immediately on shepherding in the trembling members of the second division, yet he hadn't said a word on the matter.</p><p>Was it just fear of Deuce's reaction that had stayed his tongue? Was it only because he was reluctant to witness Deuce inevitably losing control, collapsing into panic so like he had done all those months ago? Or had it been something gentler, softer, along the lines of selfishly wishing to prolong Deuce's ignorance, and thus preserve his happiness, that had kept Marco silent? Deuce’s wellbeing was dependent on Ace's, after all, the pair in tune and revolving around one another like the sun drawing in a singular satellite to orbit for eternity, living in perfect harmony for all of time.</p><p>To take away his sun must feel like losing his source of warmth in his life, the one thing nourishing his prosperity and staving off the perpetual darkness that clung to the corners of the world. Marco, ever empathic, was not looking forward to being the one to introduce that cold, bleak reality to Deuce.</p><p>Deep, wide, sharp blue eyes flashed across the infirmary at him on his gentle knock on the open door, belying nerves that Deuce instantly attempted to cover up. Perhaps he had anticipated Marco's return, this time bearing not whimpering pirates for him to assess, but news to dissect and evaluate.</p><p>(Marco thought he already knew the conclusion of this particular training session.</p><p>Marco hoped he was about to witness a spectacular outlier to map on this particular results graph.)</p><p>“Hey,” Marco said by way of feeble introduction, raising a hand in greeting, “how're things here? Everyone calmed down yet?”</p><p>He assumed this to be a <em>yes</em>, given that the infirmary was empty save for Deuce and his white doctor's coat slung over the back of a chair. Maybe the men had been sent to bed like small children who had woken in the night, wailing of monsters under beds and scary shadows cast onto walls. Maybe, instead, they were all now packed into the mess hall, steadily making their way through buckets upon buckets of the crew's home-brewed beer to drown out the memories of the disastrous mission.</p><p>“Some of them calmed down on their own after a while,” Deuce reported, eyes following Marco as he moved into the room, hands in his pockets in what he hoped portrayed nonchalance, “but a few needed help. Diazepam,” he answered Marco's frown, “and I told them to come back and see one of us if they need more, which I hope they won't do.”</p><p>“Good,” Marco said, almost too heartily, plucking Deuce's coat up and folding it in his arms for something to do, “that's good.”</p><p>Never normally someone who succumbed to nerves or danced around subjects, Marco very suddenly discovered that he could no longer meet Deuce's eyes. He did wish he wouldn't stare at him with such intensity like that, as if hoping to burn the answer to the only question he wanted to ask right out of Marco's skull.</p><p>“Where are they all now?” Marco asked, though didn't really care - which he should have, and he knew he should have, almost as certainly as he knew he should have been at least a little troubled by his own lack of concern.</p><p>“I don't know,” Deuce replied dispassionately, “they wandered off on their own in ones and twos once I'd finished checking them over. None of them were physically injured, as you saw before you left, and they shrugged the nurses off when they tried to persuade them to stay for a while, so I didn't see the point in fighting to keep them held here.”</p><p>Of course he wouldn't have. Deuce hadn't heard Saber's account on deck, and had remained ignorant of the expedition's whole ordeal thanks to Marco's own negligence. The phrase <em>treat the body but not the mind </em>seemed to inject itself into the front of Marco's thoughts as he glanced up at Deuce momentarily, dropping his gaze back down to the coat that was being continuously folded and re-folded in his arms. <em>Treat the body but not the mind</em>. That archaic, damaging way of thinking seemed to have been applied to Deuce just as much as it had the second division.</p><p>The fragility of his own mind did disgust Marco on occasion.</p><p>“It was really strange,” Deuce continued, perfectly oblivious to Marco's internal struggle, “most of them started calming down at virtually the same moment, like a light had been flipped off inside them. Only the ones who needed the benzo stayed elevated until it took effect.”</p><p>Normally, this would have interested Marco. Right now, however, it merely presented as a means for delaying the necessary, and so he seized the subject with both hands, adopting the tone of the teacher he would become when pouring over medical journals and his own scrawled notes with Deuce.</p><p>“Why do you think that was?”</p><p>Deuce snorted an exasperated, tired sound, spreading his arms wide in a gesture that begged for clarity to shine down onto him. “How should I know?” He sounded tired underneath the sudden rise in pitch towards the beginnings of frustration. “You dropped off twenty terrified men back early from their expedition, and you offered no explanation. Ignoring the obvious problems with this decision of yours, how do you expect me to effectively treat someone without giving me their recent history first? They couldn't tell me themselves; I was completely in the dark, Marco. We all were. The men wouldn't say anything, not even when they snapped out of what I can only describe as hysteria.”</p><p>“And does this not strike you as strange?” Marco challenged, seeing opportunity in gaining an outsider's view on this - maybe knowing the full story hindered insight, somehow. “They're not easily scared - none of the crew are. We've all seen the cruelness of the world out there; we're not naïve. So what, in your opinion, could cause a man to react so badly when normally he wouldn't have such a complete breakdown?”</p><p>It was roundabout, and it was needlessly cryptic, but Marco was now keen for an objective opinion free from assumption, conjecture drawn from medical evidence rather than anecdotal.</p><p>Deuce frowned at him for a long moment before asking, “are you trying to suggest that those might not have been their natural reactions? There might be something influencing them?”</p><p>“I have no idea. I'm trying to consider any and all possibilities as to what might scare a group of experienced, otherwise composed men into terror like this.”</p><p>“There are types of mushrooms or fungus that could have hallucinogenic effects,” Deuce said, sounding indifferent and unconvinced, “if they ate anything like that, then they could have potentially seen something that terrified them witless, or induced incredible paranoia. I don't know,” he added irritably, folding his arms in tight to his chest, “I have no idea what they found, what they ate, what they might have inhaled or seen or—”</p><p>He paused for breath, glaring at Marco with something not unlike fear building and rising behind his mask, beginning to lose the fight to keep it contained.</p><p>“They didn't eat anything native,” Marco murmured, dismissing this theory with an irritated sigh of his own, “they took their own provisions under the assumption that there was nothing edible on the island.”</p><p>And Deuce was right. Marco had asked the impossible of him, had provided nothing in the way of an explanation for anything he had delivered, not just the absence of Ace.</p><p>“Can I know what actually happened <em>now?” </em>Deuce asked, voice dripping with angry sarcasm. “Now that I've finished doing nothing useful whatsoever, can I be included on whatever the hell is going on here?”</p><p>And yet still, he didn't directly ask about Ace. To anyone else, this might have presented as a lack of caring about his ex-captain. To Marco, it was only too obviously born from caring too <em>much</em>.</p><p>So, Marco explained. Carefully. Leaving out direct mention of Ace's kidnapping, of how it was this that was the catalyst for the men devolving into sheer terror. Recounting Saber's tale with as much accuracy as possible, first explaining how all had seemed well until the moment when they were attacked and, thus, terrified to such extremes that they were forced to leave the island, departing into their overnight return to the Moby.</p><p>While explaining, Deuce listened without interruption. If he found it strange how Ace didn't seem to feature into this story in any capacity, he didn't show this in his expression, which was set in a disbelieving frown for the duration.</p><p>Finally, Marco delivered the conclusion to his hands, having sat down on one of the examination chairs opposite Deuce, feeling rather like a student rationalizing their poor behavior to their particularly strict clinical lead. He told Deuce of how Saber had delivered the news to the crew, how Marco had then brought them all to the infirmary, and how, while Deuce and the nurses had discovered nothing treatable other than fear, Whitebeard, Marco, Thatch, and Vista had convened.</p><p>“Which leads me up to now,” Marco finished, eyes flickering up to briefly meet Deuce's, “to me coming here to talk to you.”</p><p>Silence hung between them for several tense seconds, the only sound coming from the distant hum of conversation on deck. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Deuce asked, “and why <em>have </em>you come to talk to me, really?” When Marco didn't reply immediately, Deuce asked rather more gently, “and why won't you look at me properly?”</p><p>That was all it took for Marco to do exactly that, wide-eyed and searching the masked face that he still didn't know in its true entirety. Deuce no longer looked angry; he looked tired, exhausted, the fatigue bone-deep and brittle, as if he may crack just under the weight of Marco's gaze alone. It mutely pleaded with Marco's guilt, begging it to tell him of Ace's location, of Ace's fate, of where Ace was right now so Deuce could go to him, confirm he was fit and well and whole, and then, in his own personal method of caring that extended beyond the bond of doctor and patient, calmly lead Ace somewhere recluse to talk through what had <em>really </em>happened on that island.</p><p>It was strange how now was the moment when Marco questioned why the island still remained as unnamed as it was unmapped, unknown. Perhaps naming the place would make it seem more approachable.</p><p>Not that that would stop him from leaving for it, anyway.</p><p>“I came to tell you that Ace didn't come back with the rest of his party.”</p><p>The words fell from his lips before he could rehearse them for the hundredth time, going over and over the same scenario as he had done relentlessly for the last couple of hours. Marco braced for the questions, the horror, the look of shock draining Deuce's face to leave him pale and pallid.</p><p>Instead, he was met with a strange calm from the other doctor, leaving Deuce nodding slowly as if this revelation didn't come as a surprise at all.</p><p>(Given the way Marco had been acting, perhaps this wasn't as shocking as it should have been.)</p><p>“Explain,” was all Deuce asked of him, though his leveled tone was tinged with a yearning for immediate understanding, a pain that couldn’t be put into words.</p><p>When Marco described what Saber had divulged, leaving out no detail now that the moment to be honest had come, Deuce listened, transfixed, expression incomprehensible only for its impassivity. He didn't demonstrate anything that Marco had been so worried about, although it was somewhat unnerving how he refused to look away, fixing Marco with an inscrutable stare of burning blue.</p><p>At last, Deuce's chin tilted as he raised his face to the ceiling, eyes flicking back and forth as if he could see something Marco couldn't. Chasing thoughts around his head, maybe, all while probably unaware he was doing it at all.</p><p>“And so he's still there on that island?” Deuce asked at last, not looking at Marco.</p><p>“Yes,” Marco said. His palms were sweating. “But we don't believe his kidnappers want to hurt him... we concluded that had they wanted to kill him, they would have done so there. They wouldn't have grabbed him while he was on fire, for one thing, striking before he displayed his power. I think,” Marco leaned forwards until his elbows were digging into his knees, and he <em>wished </em>Deuce would look at him again after spending so long hoping he would do the exact opposite, “that they want him <em>because of </em>his power. They showed no signs of attacking before that moment, so <em>why?”</em></p><p>“And so if they want his power, they need him alive,” Deuce concluded. He frowned, dropping his face again and at last fixing Marco with that same searching, accusatory glare. “Why not kill him and take the respawned Fruit? Wasn't there any fruit on the trees?”</p><p>Marco shrugged. “Saber didn't say.”</p><p>“I see.”</p><p>Was that it? Marco frowned back at Deuce, feeling like he was missing something vitally important.</p><p>“Is that all you have to say?” He asked before he could stop himself. “Your partner is missing in the hands of an unknown enemy, the likes of which have terrified your crewmates into hysterics, and you don't seem to be the least bit bothered. Do you understand what I've told you?”</p><p>“I understand just fine,” Deuce said with a cold bite to his voice, one that dared Marco to provoke him further, to see how shallow lay the distress that had first flashed in his eyes on Marco's arrival. “What would you like me to do? Cry? Scream? Jump into a life boat and start rowing for the island? None of that will help Ace. Me losing my head is not going to magically bring him back, and I know that I would only get in his way if I went to help him. And besides,” his face twisted with a confident, assured smile, “this isn't the first time Ace has been caught and held by enemies.” When Marco didn't say anything to this, Deuce added with a note of pride, “the difference between you and me is I believe in Ace. And I believe that he's going to be just fine.”</p><p>“Don't be so naïve,” Marco snorted, instantly irritated by this display of childishly ill-placed faith. “This is the New World, not cozy, quaint East Blue. That island carries something unknown on it that has just taken your partner, and you're telling me you're relying on <em>trust </em>to keep him safe?”</p><p>“Not just that,” Deuce said, expression alive with something that made his eyes <em>shine</em>, “but if those things didn't want it known that they've taken Ace, they wouldn't have let the entire party he was with leave, unscathed, to tell his crew of sixteen-hundred plus <em>Whitebeard</em> exactly where to find them... unless, of course, this <em>wasn't </em>an attack and you're looking at this from the wrong angle. Ace is, as far as we can tell, of functional use to them for his fire, and who out there needs help with<em> fire?”</em> Deuce's eyes flickered between Marco's own, waiting for him to figure out whatever he had obviously talked himself into believing.</p><p>“Let's not go too far into abstract and unlikely possibilities,” Marco sighed. “I can see why you'd find comfort in believing this wasn't led by malice, but the men are—”</p><p>“Unhurt, intact, perfectly healthy—”</p><p>“<em>Terrified</em>,” Marco snapped, “as you should be.”</p><p>“I am!” Deuce said defensively. “I would have gladly given my life to protect Ace's if I had been with him, but I wasn’t, so I can't this time.” Marco saw the regret there – saw the frustration and misery turned inward for having remained behind while Ace had gone ahead. “I'm also trying to be realistic here, Commander – I'm trying to find the flaws in your conclusions, because offering alternative explanations is all I can do right now!”</p><p>“Well we'll know what happened soon enough,” Marco said shortly, rising to his feet, “because I'm going after him. I'm leaving right now.”</p><p>Curiously, right at that moment, Marco wanted Deuce to ask if he could go with him. To demand that he wait while he packed a bag, then insist on swinging a leg over the phoenix's back to travel into the unknown together. And if he did, then Marco would take him without question, without insulting his dedication further and denying him the right to be the one to save Ace.</p><p>So Marco didn't understand why it never came. The desperation. The pleading. The grand prose that regularly spilled from Deuce's pen to paper that detailed love of every color for his best friend, for his savior, for his whole world. It didn't come, and Marco was left drifting through a sea of uncertainty, confusion lapping like waves against where he tread the waters of Deuce's decision not to act.</p><p>That was until Deuce held the door open for him and, as Marco moved to leave, Deuce caught him by the sleeve and murmured, “please, bring him back. I don't trust myself to keep it together the moment I leave this room. I know myself <em>very </em>well, and I know that if I did find him hurt or—or worse, then I wouldn’t…”</p><p>Deuce inhaled deeply, chest expanding with it.</p><p>“Find him. Save him. Bring him back home again.”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And nothing is resolved 🤡 see y'all next chapter!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I love chatting, so feel free to send me a message on either <a href="https://chromiwrites.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/Chromiwrites">Twitter</a>! I'm always open to requests and chatting about the guys!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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